Independent Review of Home Education

Wiltshire Response

Q5 Which team(s) have the main responsibility for supporting and monitoring home educated children within the local authority and other agencies?

Education Welfare Service

Q6 List all teams / professionals involved in supporting home educating families

Education Welfare Service / Central Special Educational Needs team / Educational Psychology Service / Physical and Sensory Impairment Support Service

Q7 List all teams / professionals involved in monitoring home educating families

EWS / SEN / EP / Social Care / Health Visitors / Traveller Education Service

Q8 Describe how you ensure collaboration and communication between these teams / individuals

Different ways based on individual circumstances and according to need:

  • EWS will instigate contact with other professionals;
  • if a statutory requirement exists with regard to SEN,
  • EWS will be advised by the Central SEN team or vice versa;
  • examples where CAMHS team have contacted EWS

Q9 How many children are currently home educated in your local authority of primary age (Registered with LA)?

47

Q10 How many children are currently home educated in your local authority of primary age (Non-registered with LA)?

Don’t know

Q11 How many children are currently home educated in your local authority of secondary age (Registered with LA)?

101

Q12 How many children are currently home educated in your local authority of secondary age (Non-registered with LA)?

Don’t know

Q13 Total (Registered with LA)

148

Q14 Total (Non-registered with LA)

Don’t know

Q15 Are these figures accurate or based on estimates?

Accurate

Q16 If accurate, where do you get this data from?

  • Directory kept by EWS of registrations, usually supported by parental signatures;
  • information from schools under regulation 12 (Pupil Registration Regulations 2006)

Q17 If accurate, how do you know the data is accurate?

EWS Directory regularly checked against Wiltshire Core database (WICID) and through EWS monitoring systems.

Q18If estimated, what data have you used to arrive at this figure? (List all sources)

N/A

Q19 How confident is the local authority in the accuracy of this data?

Fairly confident

Q20 How often does the local authority get updated data? (List frequency for each source separately)

  • Schools – on an individual basis when notified by a parent or when a child is withdrawn from the school roll (following regulation 12 Pupil Registration Regulations 2006)
  • Parents – direct contact with the local authority on an individual basis
  • Anonymous contact from member of the public – on an individual basis
  • Other professionals eg social care, CAMHS, SEN – on an individual basis
  • Incidental: eg employment of children through application for a permit
  • Truancy Watch - (police/EWS)on an individual basis

Q21 What proportion (as a percentage) of your home educated population is statemented for SEN? (please state whether accurate or estimate)

2.7% - accurate

Q22 What proportion (as a percentage) of your home educated population is non-statemented for SEN? (please state whether accurate or estimate)

97.3% - accurate

Q23 What proportion (as a percentage) of your home educated population is from Gypsy, Roma and Traveller heritage (please state whether accurate or estimate)

4.1% - accurate

Q24 What proportion (as a percentage) of your home educated population is made up of other Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) groups? (please state whether accurate or estimate)

Currently this data not collected centrally.

Q25 Please list which BME groups

N/A

Q26 Do you believe the local authority knows about all the home educated children in your area?

There will be some children we are not aware of

Q27/28 Do you think you will be better able to track children in your area in the near future? Eg planned changes to your own systems, ContactPoint, other system improvements?

Yes

Use of ContactPoint should enable cross checking with current systems.

Q29 How does the local authority ensure families know their rights and responsibilities in relation to home education?

  • Information pack for parents
  • Offer of a pre-registration visit to discuss the implications, responsibilities and rights of parents who home educate.
  • Keeping schools updated with regard to their responsibilities under Regulation 12 of the Pupil Registration Regulations of informing the local authority

Q30 What support does your local authority provide to home educating parents?

  • Offer of initial and monitoring visits;
  • option to parents of forms of acceptable alternatives to visits ie reports
  • Annual review for children with statements of SEN
  • Offer to link with local networking groups

Q31 How does the local authority let families know about the services provided to support them in home educating their children?

  • Information pack sent to all prospective home educating families prior to decision to home educate
  • Provision of website addresses of support networks, resources, relevant supporting organisations eg Education Otherwise
  • Via schools

Q32 Following the initial assessment visit, are further monitoring visits made to a home educated child?

Yes

Q33 If yes, how often, on average, are these carried out?

Varies according to circumstances can be more than twice a year; twice a year; once a year

Q 34 – Detail on above: frequency of follow up visits depend on individual circumstances – If no concerns and evidence of good provision then usually 6 month visit after the first initial assessment with annual thereafter. If concerns about the suitability of the education provision, there could be a 3 or more support visits offered within the first year, with continuing increased frequency within any subsequent years.

Q35 On average, how often is the child seen when a visit is made?

Usually, but not always.

Q36 Most parents welcome the child being engaged with any visit by the EWO to the family home. However, occasionally, parents do not wish this, especially when a visit has been arranged, at the parent’s request, in a venue other than the home. If on such occasions, there is good engagement by the parent in providing evidence of education provision for their child, concerns about not seeing the child would not be raised.

Q37 If the child is seen, where is he/she usually seen?

In the home.

Q38 Detail as above.

Q39 If you are not permitted to see the child, is any further action taken?

Yes

Q40 What steps would be taken?

If, because of the parent’s attitude, lack of engagement with evidencing education provision, known or suspected prior circumstances which might indicate a child was vulnerable or at risk, prior knowledge that a child had been withdrawn from school because of the likelihood of prosecution against the parent for their child’s non-attendance contact would be made with social care, CAMHS or other health professionals such as health visitors or the child’s previous school as appropriate.

Q41 How is the suitability of the education provided to the child assessed? (Please describe)

A standard initial monitoring report is used which requests the following information:

Reasons for home educating; others who might be involved with the home education; style of teaching/learning; general aims for the next 6 months; resources to be used in home education eg computer, library, television and other media; proposed subjects/topics/projects; proposed physical activities; social contact and other relevant additional information. For young people who are equivalent to Y10/Y11|: proposed contact with Connexions, work experience, GCSE or other examinations.

Q42 Is the local authority clear about what the definition of a ‘suitable education’ is?

Yes

Q43 – Detail:

There is no absolute definition of what suitable education is.

The local authority follows the case law in the court case DfES ex parte Talmud Torah Machzikei Hadass School Trust (1985) which offered the following definition:

“education is ‘suitable’ if it primarily equips a child for life within the community of which he is a member, rather than the way of life in the country as a whole, as long as it does not foreclose the child’s options in later years to adopt some other form of life if he wishes to do so”.

Q44 Does the local authority have systems in place to track the educational progress of home educated children?

Yes

Q45 Detail: The local authority does not use any formal assessment tools such as would enable progress to be measured against National Curriculum levels.

Progress is tracked through evidence provided by the parent of written samples of the child’s work (either during a visit or sent as a report); through discussion with the child; through discussion or written report from a third party involved with the child’s education.

Q46 Of the home educated children in your area of whom you have knowledge, what proportion (as a percentage), in your estimation is receiving a suitable, full time (20 hours a week) education?

This information is not currently collated centrally, but is an area for development. Individual cases are followed up by EWOs as described at Q34.

Q47 Does the local authority take any further steps if a home educated child’s education was found to be unsuitable or not full time.

Yes

Q48 Detail: The Education Welfare Officer will (or attempt to) discuss this with the parent during a visit, or following receipt of the parental report, and suggest areas of improvement. If, following a period of advice and support (up to 3 months), the education still remains unsatisfactory, the parent will receive in writing, a warning of the legal consequences of failure to provide their child with a suitable education and the steps local authority may take to ensure the education of the child through the use of a School Attendance Order.

Q49 Does the local authority face any challenges in assessing whether home educated children are receiving a suitable education?

Yes

Q 50 Detail: Any assessment is open to subjective interpretation of suitability, (although staff are provided with training with regard to monitoring).This is exacerbated because there is no requirement for a standard formal measure by which to measure a child’s progress (as in literacy or numeracy levels) or the number of hours of education provided by the parent.

There is no direct comparison which can be made with a school timetable as home education will often span weekends, evenings, or other irregular hours outside of term time, with many parents preferring to take a less formal approach by working in line with the interest and engagement of their child in any particular project, rather than by the clock.

Q51 Thinking about your local area, in the last five years, how many cases have you come across that use the premise of home education as a ‘cover’ for child abuse, forced marriage or other aspect of child abuse?

None specifically for child abuse or forced marriage, but a few cases where a parent was on the verge of the local authority taking prosecution proceedings against them for their child’s non attendance at school.

Q52 Please detail above – include the number of Serious Case Reviews you know about that have had a home education element.

None

Q53 Do you think the current system for safeguarding children who are educated at home is adequate?

No

Q54 Detail: There is no legal requirement for the local authority to see the child. Parents do not have to register or seek approval to educate their children at home (although if registered at a school must inform the school in writing of their intention to home educate). There is no legal requirement for other agencies to provide information to the local authority in relation to home education (though it is acknowledged that ContactPoint could assist with this).

Safeguarding would be improved if Regulations were introduced which addressed the issues raised above.

Q55 Do you think that home educated children in your local authority are able to achieve the five Every Child Matters outcomes? Please say why you think that for each of the five outcomes.

Within the local authority there are examples of children for whom there is good contact with the local authority, the relationship with parents is positive, the child/young person is seen regularly as part of the monitoring visits, parents and young people opt to engage with Connexions. These children demonstrate confident communication skills, demonstrate that they are happy, secure and evidence they are making good progress and have positive aims and ambitions for their future life. There are others where the authority would be less confident about a young person ultimately achieving economic well-being.

Q56 Do you think there should be any changes made to the current system for supporting home educating families?

Q57 Detail: If home educating families were able to apply for an education allowance, similar to a pupil AWPU, through the local authority, this would help to support access to good quality resources as well as encouraging more parents to register.

Q58 Do you think there should be any changes made to the current system for monitoring home educating families and ensuring that home educated children are able to achieve the five outcomes?

Yes

Q59 Detail: The use of a national standard assessment tool could reduce the subjectivity of monitoring visits, but would need to be sensitive to the less formal nature of home education, whilst enabling an objective measure of progress against the responsibilities of parents to fulfil current legislative requirements. Frequency of monitoring contacts may benefit from a national standard.

Q60 Has the Director of Children’s Services and the Lead Member for Children and Young People seen and agreed with the answers you have given above?

Yes.